Rewrite the Racial Rules: Building an Inclusive American Economy

Andrea Flynn, Susan Holmberg, Dorian Warren, Felicia Wong

2016

Rewriting the Racial Rules: Building an Inclusive American Economy argues that, in order to understand racial and economic inequality among black Americans, we must acknowledge the racial rules that undergird our economy and society. Those rules—laws, policies, institutions, regulations, and normative practices—are the driving force behind the patently unequal life chances and opportunities for too many individuals.

In this report, Andrea Flynn, Dorian Warren, Felicia Wong, and Susan Holmberg examine the racial rules across six different dimensions: income, wealth, education, criminal justice, health, and democratic participation. Ultimately, we show why the rules structuring our economy matter for the well-being of black Americans. And, against the backdrop of stark racial economic inequality dating back centuries, we make the case for pushing past both explicit and implicit exclusions, as well as ostensible race-neutrality.